The house Eddy built. With regard to my arrival, my friend Eddy had organised everything and I mean everything. After touching down at Hanoi airport I was met by a taxi driver holding up a sign with my name on it. The man took me to a hotel about an hour's drive away from Hanoi’s old quarter, the hotel which was pre-booked and also paid for. Three doors down the street I found the travel agent where I could collect my ticket for the sleeper train to Lao Ca...

Hanoi Coming from a very clean country where littering falls into reals of anti social behaviour and is subject to fines I am used to throwing rubbish in the rubbish bin and not on the street. But here in Hanoi there are very few rubbish bins and this is perhaps why most people throw just about everything which is of no use on the street or into the gutter. At times, if I have a larger item I may place my rubbish on a rubbish pile but feel uneasy about it. T...